One selection, twenty magazines, one email. That is the most common way poets submit, and it fails at the first line, because every magazine has its own reading window, its own limit on how many poems it will look at, and its own rule about whether the same poems may be sent elsewhere at the same time.
This guide is about that, and about the second half of the job: getting attention for a pamphlet or a collection once it exists. Every page in the list was opened and checked on 5 October 2026.
Two different jobs
"Please print these poems." This is a submission, not a pitch. You are entering a process with its own terms, and the page is where those terms are.
"Please write about this book." This is a pitch, and it goes to people who commission reviews: books editors, review editors, the producers of reading series. A pamphlet does not arrive with publicity attached. Somebody has to tell a reviewer it exists.
Mixing them is the usual mistake. A magazine that wants six poems does not want your book launch, and a reviewer does not want a submission form.
Reading windows are not queues
A reading window is a period during which a magazine reads. Send outside it and the work is not considered, however good. Several titles on the list below read only in fixed months; others are open all year.
How to keep the windows: put every magazine you intend to approach in one page with four columns, the last of which is the next opening date. Poetry Scotland says it normally reads in January and July. PN Review takes work in the first week of December and the last week of June. Under the Radar states a window running from 1 March to 7 April 2027. The Rialto keeps its window open.
The dates on these pages change, and some are written as if the current round were still open after it has closed. Open the page before you send, and treat the window it describes now as the one that counts.
The same poem in two places
Simultaneous submission means sending the same poem to more than one magazine at a time. Magazines disagree about it, and the disagreement is not subtle:
- Stand says it does not read or accept submissions sent simultaneously.
- The Poetry Review says it does not consider simultaneous submissions, and asks you to submit new poems only after a decision.
- Under the Radar takes one submission at a time.
- Poetry London asks you to withdraw your poems if they are accepted elsewhere.
- PN Review discourages it rather than forbidding it.
- Magma says it accepts work also submitted to other publications.
Two rules follow, and they are not optional. Where a magazine forbids simultaneous submission, that rule binds the whole batch: the poem cannot be in flight anywhere else on the day you send it. And when a magazine that allows it takes the work, you withdraw it from every other magazine holding it that day, at once.
What counts as already published
This is where poets lose submissions they had every chance of placing, because a poem posted online is treated differently by different magazines.
Stand, Granta, The London Magazine, The Poetry Review and Under the Radar all want work that has never been published. The Rialto puts it as not published anywhere, in print or online. Poetry London says it does not print previously published work except in exceptional circumstances.
So a poem on a personal blog, in a newsletter, or on a social account is not an unpublished poem, for most of the magazines on this list. If you want the work placed, keep it off your own public channels until it has been answered.
How many poems, and in what shape
The limits are close together and the details are not interchangeable. Poetry London takes up to six. The Rialto takes up to six, all in a single Word document, with your name and email on each page. The Poetry Review takes a maximum of six in one document and allows only one document. Under the Radar takes up to six. PN Review takes verse that does not exceed five pages. Poetry Scotland takes three shorter poems or one longer one.
Format matters as much as number. The Rialto wants one document. Poetry Scotland takes email only.
The covering letter is three lines
It is not a place to explain the poems. The Rialto asks for a single document of poems; Poetry Scotland asks for your name at the foot of each page; The Poetry Review asks for a cover note listing titles. Nothing asks for your reading of your own work.
Send the poems, your name, your contact details, and a line saying what else you have placed. That is the whole letter, and at 60 to 90 words it is already longer than most magazines need.
Attention to a book that already exists
A pamphlet published last month is not a review yet. What moves it is one of four things: a review, in a poetry magazine or in the papers; a reading, where a critic is in the room; a prize submission, with its own deadline; or an essay by you about the book, which is the one route that depends on you rather than on an editor.
For a pamphlet, the people to write to are the ones who commission reviews of poetry: the reviews editors of poetry magazines first, then the books pages of newspapers. A national books page usually chooses from publishers' catalogues and seldom from an author's email, so a small press and its poet do better with the poetry magazines, with readings and with local press. Keep ten copies of the first print run aside for this, and decide who gets them before the launch.
Keeping a record
One row per submission, and these columns: magazine, poems sent, date sent, the response time the page states, the result, and the date you chased.
The response times in the list below are the magazines' own. Several are generous: Poetry Scotland says within six weeks of the closing date, The Rialto and Stand within three months, The Poetry Review within three months, PN Review aims to respond within twelve weeks, Magma says as soon as a decision is made.
Use them. Do not send a reminder at week three to a magazine that told you to wait twelve.
Reading in one city, then the next
A reading is news in the town where it happens. Most towns have a local paper, a local radio station and free listings that take event details, and each of the three wants its own short email with that town's date in the subject line. Send to listings and local press three to six weeks ahead.
Leeds Inspired has a page for adding an event and says it is free. Daily Info, in Oxford, has a List Your Event page for the same purpose.
City societies in Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester and Oxford take event details and say they pass a tour on to the other cities on the route. If you read in more than one of those cities, write once and name the others: see, for example, Cambridge and Leeds.
For the reading itself, a listing wants four things: the date, the venue with its address, a link to tickets, and one image. A poster designed for a wall rarely works at thumbnail size.
Three mistakes particular to poets
One selection to everybody. Each magazine has a window, a count and a simultaneous-submission rule. Check all three before sending, not after.
A biography longer than the poems. Nothing on the list asks for one. Titles, contact details, and what you have placed.
A reminder before the stated response time. Several of these magazines ask for three months. A request at week two tells them you did not read the page.
A submission and a pitch you can adapt
Both examples are invented. Nothing in them refers to a real poet, magazine, publisher or prize.
Subject: Three poems for [magazine name]
Dear [editor],
Please find three poems enclosed, sent through [platform], as your page asks.
Two of them come from a pamphlet published in [month, year]; the third is new. The pamphlet is listed at [one link].
With thanks for your time, [Name, address, email]
About fifty words. It names what is enclosed, says what is new, gives one link, and stops.
For attention to a book, the approach is different:
Subject: Review copy: [pamphlet title], [press], [month year]
Dear [name],
I am the author of [pamphlet title], a collection of forty short poems published by [press] in [month, year]. I am sending a copy for review.
The poems are arranged in four parts, and the last part responds to the closure of a local industry documented in [year]. That local connection may be of interest to your readers.
I can send more copies, and I am glad to answer questions.
With thanks, [Name, address]
About ninety words: a copy, a structure, an angle, and an offer to help.
Where to pitch
The list gives what each title says on its own page. Terms change; open the page before you send. Two titles are missing from the list because they were closed to poems on the day it was checked: Granta and Wasafiri. Both pages describe what they take when they open.
ArtCulture UK
What they take. Says it is occasionally open to previously unpublished poetry from established or promising writers, and asks you to query first.
What their page asks for. A pitch through the form: the angle, why now, two or three links. Says it does not want unsolicited full manuscripts, and replies within about ten working days.
ArtCulture UK: submissions guidelines
London Review of Books
What they take. Poems among the work it lists, with reportage, memoir and articles.
What their page asks for. Email or post to the editorial address. Says that if you have not heard within three weeks you should assume it does not intend to publish, and asks that nothing made or edited with AI is sent.
London Review of Books: submissions
Magma
What they take. No more than four poems per poet per issue.
What their page asks for. All poems in a single document, with your name on each page. Says it accepts work also sent to other publications. Charges non-subscribers a submission fee for poetry, stated on its page; free to subscribers and to those on benefits.
PN Review
What they take. Verse that does not exceed five pages.
What their page asks for. By email for subscribers, by post otherwise. Says it cannot consider work outside the first week of December or the last week of June, discourages simultaneous submissions, and aims to respond within twelve weeks.
Poetry Scotland
What they take. Three shorter poems or one longer poem.
What their page asks for. By email only, as a .doc, .docx or .rtf, with your name at the foot of each page. Says it normally reads from 1 to 31 January and 1 to 31 July, asks to be told if a poem is taken elsewhere, and responds within six weeks of closing. Says it cannot pay for the poems it publishes.
Stand
What they take. No more than four to six separate poems, previously unpublished.
What their page asks for. By email, with a stamped addressed envelope if you are in the UK. Says it does not read or accept submissions sent simultaneously, and replies within three months.
The Poetry Review
What they take. A maximum of six poems in a single document.
What their page asks for. Through its submission portal, with a cover note listing titles and one document only. Says it does not consider simultaneous submissions, and replies within three months. Charges non-members, free to Poetry Society members, stated on its page.
The Rialto
What they take. Up to six poems, unpublished in print or online.
What their page asks for. All poems in one Word document, with your name or email on each page, and no multiple submissions. Says it aims to reply within three months.
Under the Radar
What they take. Up to six previously unpublished poems.
What their page asks for. Through its submission portal, with a cover letter and a fifty-word biography. States a window of 1 March to 7 April 2027, does not accept simultaneous submissions, and allows at least twelve weeks from the close.
Questions poets ask
Does posting a poem on social media count as publication? For most of the titles above, yes. Several say they want work that has never been published, and one states it in terms that include online. Treat any public post as publication and keep new poems off your own channels until a magazine has answered.
How many magazines can I send the same poem to? As many as the magazines' rules allow, and no more. Two titles on this list say they do not accept simultaneous submissions at all; two ask you to say if the work is taken elsewhere; one discourages it. Check the rule for every title before you send the batch.
Do I need a pamphlet before a collection? Not to submit poems, and not to approach a magazine: a first collection is routinely built from published work. It does change what you can pitch about yourself. With no pamphlet there is no review copy to send, so your route to attention is a reading, an open call, or an essay of your own.
Is a submission fee a warning sign? No. Two titles in this list charge a small fee to people who are not subscribers or members, and say so on their pages; the fee pays for reading, and the poems are still chosen or refused. Paying towards publication is a different purchase: an anthology or a magazine whose contributors share the cost of the issue gives you a printed record and readers, and many poets begin there. Know which of the two you are buying, and list it accordingly.
Does your publication take pitches, or has a page in this list changed? Tell the Journal and the list will be corrected.
